Fleeting Power Quotes

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them

The party in power, like Jonah's gourd, grew up quickly, and will quickly fall.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

There... Poor little things. You see them? Standing with their numbers on their blank, indifferent faces, Nuremberg in miniature, the ranks of painted wooden men... Poor dominoes. Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers down it goes.

No reasonable man would think more highly of himself because he has office or power in this world; he is no more than a prisoner whom the chief gaoler has set over his fellow-prisoners, until the executioner's cart comes for him too.

Do you not know that the largest trees, which have required years to grow, are cut down in one hour? It is foolish to look for their fruits and yet to be unprepared for their fall. Let it be your consolation, then, that God's enemies, however honorable and exalted they may have been, shall nevertheless fade away like the smoke.

It was built against the will of the immortal gods, and so it did not last for long.

But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.

Good literature always ends up showing those who read it... the inevitable limitation of all power to fulfill human aspirations and desires.

Look to the past and remember no empire rises that sooner or later won't fall.

All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory.

Death is not the monarch for the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject.

Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

Our mindset is not such that we will remain in power till eternity.

I don't know if I had success or not. But I am afraid of myself. Why am I afraid of myself? I always feel - I don't know - weak in the sense of not having power and also power is a fleeting thing, here today, gone tomorrow.

Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king'd again: and by and by Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing.

The dragon is withered, His bones are now crumbled; His armour is shivered, His splendour is humbled! Though sword shall be rusted, And throne and crown perish With strength that men trusted And wealth that they cherish, Here grass is still growing, And leaves are yet swinging, The white water flowing, And elves are yet singing Come! Tra-la-la-lally! Come back to the valley!

Nothing mortal is so unstable and subject to change as power which has no foundation.

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

All passes, Art alone Enduring stays to us; The Bust out-lasts the throne,-- The coin, Tiberius.

the instruments of power - arms, gold, machines, magical or technical secrets - always exist independently of him who disposes of them, and can be taken up by others. Consequently all power is unstable.

Little men build up great ones, but the snow colossus soon melts; the good stand under the eye of God, and therefore stand.

It has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain as fame or power not founded on its own strength.

And who are you, the proud Lord said that I must bow so low? Only a cat of a different coat, that's all the truth I know. In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws. And, mine are as long and sharp, my Lord as long and sharp as yours. And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that Lord of Castamere, but now the rains weep o'er his hall, with no one there to hear. Yes, now the rains weep o'er his hall, and not a soul to hear.